There is so much going on in hobby gaming right now it’s hard know where to begin. Games Workshop continues to fire on all cylinders, convention season is here in earnest, and the churn of Kickstarter is kicking up all kinds of interesting projects.

Sadly, my own hobby efforts have fallen off a bit this month due to an overwhelming number of responsibilities but I did knock out a commission I kind of wished I could have kept…

This fat sack of crap is part of an ongoing Seraphon army I’m painting for a client (which is why the base is unfinished, he does his own basing for consistency) and I love him. It was also a great opportunity to try out a couple of the new Formula P3 paints. The tiny salamanders climbing around the throne were painted with a base of Khador Red Base, then highlighted with Inferno Orange, washed with Infernal Ink, and detailed with Thamar Black stripes. The new orange paint and inks have incredible pigment saturation and really pop. Highly recommended.

As cool as he was, the most satisfying hobby project I’ve worked on this year was actually done in May but had to be kept secret at the time. In case you’re not following along at home, I’m a member of a private wargaming club here in Seattle, Pike & Shots. Essentially a hand-picked group of nerds who share a general passion for the hobby and a disdain for rules arguments. One of our members got married this month and as a present, the club painted him a whole Saga: Age of Crusades Mutatawwi’a Muslim army. We split up the various parts amongst ourselves and painted the whole thing in about two weeks before presenting it to him as a surprise gift at Enfilade! (more on Enfilade! later). He was delighted and generously shared his extremely expensive scotch with us in celebration.

I really can’t recommend starting your own gaming club enough. Pick your friends and play games with them. Don’t let your only gaming experiences be with strangers or that guy who is always at the shop even though you don’t like him much. There’s camaraderie to be had in gaming, get some of that.

What follows are the two mutatawwi’a fanatics (half of a hearthguard unit) I painted and then the whole army. I used my two models to try and push my freehand skills a little and made some progress, I think.

I’d also like to thank Chris from Cigarbox Battle who heard about what we were doing during Enfilade and very generously donated a desert mat to the gift! Cigarbox makes beautiful printed felt gaming maps and currently has an excellent Kickstarter going on with new designs at great prices. Go check them out.

As for Enfilade! it was a blast as always. Enfilade! is a historical minis convention held yearly in Olympia, Washington and differs from most gaming cons in that its focus is on set piece games, often run by game masters, and offering very little open gaming. Each year dozens of dedicated gamers build tables and paint armies just to run games at the show, and you’ll see some beautiful tables with painted armies as far as the eye can see. It’s an opportunity to try new game systems, many of them homebrewed or heavily modified, and drink heavily over Memorial Day weekend.

I played three games this year, notably Pike & Shotte, a system I’ve been meaning to try for some time. I quite liked it though it fell victim to the “big game” problem of dividing into a few sub-games across the table. I did manage to fight the decisive action of the battle routing the Germanic forces of the Holy Roman Empire and bringing victory to Sweden. Hooray!

The game I was most impressed with though, was one I didn’t even play. I spent much of Saturday evening watching one of my comrades playing Firelock Game’s piratical sensation, Blood & Plunder. The gamemaster supplied 6 ships, an island, and 6 players controlling English naval vessels and pirates in a game that I was totally engrossed just watching. I’ve actually had a copy of the rulebook and an English starter set of models for almost a year but that game is much, much higher on my priority list now and I hope to make some time for it in the fall.

Anyway, here’s a photo dump!

In Games Workshop news, the second edition of Age of Sigmar is about to be released and I’m quite excited. I had the chance to see an advance copy a few weeks ago and am looking forward to getting my hands on a Nighthaunt force. I’ll actually be reviewing it for the newly launched wargaming site, Tabletop Test. Expect it to be published in the second week of July.

Finally, after some experiences at Enfliade! I’ll be writing an upcoming post about confronting actual-factual fascists in wargaming spaces. It’s not a pleasant topic but this is not a pleasant time and we suffer their presence at our own peril.